Help needed : Hippo VB Foam mod + general questions about sibilance (dfkt, brendon, clieos please check this out)

[daouda]

Hi everybody, this is my first thread here and first of all i would like to thank this quite amazing head-fi community for the help (direct or indirect) they have provided for my introduction to this beautiful journey to good sounding portable music (esp. dftk, clieos, joker, brendon, dervishd, mark and many others). However, my wallet and my bank account officially hate every single one of you.

Anyway, i have received my Hippo VBs a few days ago and unfortunately for me even after more than 60 hours of burn-in they still sound VERY sibilant to my ears, complete with harsh highs and treble. They are by far the most sibilant thing i've ever heard, bringing out obvious sibliance on every S, F and even T vocal sounds, even on correctly ripped tracks (even FLAC) that had never shown any sibilance before to my ears. And they very often sound way too bright for my taste with music that is already on the bright side. On some other darker music however, they sound almost perfect to my ears and REALLY nice and quite detailed and lively and airy (giving those tracks probably the best presentation i've ever heard), with just that sibilance in the vocals.

I am still going to burn them in some more (after reading brendon's experience) but i doubt a miracle will happen now. So i think i will probably need to throw in some "sponge" or "foam" inside the canals to tame the treble harshness and hopefully the sibilance issue along with it.

So here i am asking for your help (i know at least brendon and dfkt have done this): what kind and what quantity of foamy material have you used for that purpose? Would it be possible for you to post pics? The type of "sponge" we have here in france is not appropriate for this use, for it is vegetal and becomes hard like a rock when dehydrated.
So i was thinking, maybe some coton wool? But isnt there a risk to damage the driver with some fibers that could stay stuck inside, past the grill? The other material i thought about is that cushion that comes with the sansa fuze stock earbuds (i dont use them anyway).
Wouldnt the type of material used as well as the quantity have an influence on the sound modification it would produce? The thing is, i want to tame the treble harshness, but i would really not want to make the mids more recessed. I actually would like vocals to be a bit more forward than they already are on the VBs unmodded.

So there it is, i would really enjoy to have your feedback on this and would be very grateful!

On a side note, what's up with this VB sibilance issue or non-issue depending on the owner here on head-fi?? I know that myself, brendon, eiraku and some more report a VERY serious sibilance problem with those phones (at least out of the box, with brendon almost getting his fixed with extensive burn in), while others (most being trustful and respected headfiers) like dfkt, clieos, borako and more report very light to no sibilance at all even right out of the box!!!!

This could only mean one of those two things :

1-The drivers have a very variable quality depending on the batch, which means Hippo quality control sucks and i (and others) have been unlucky to get a "bad batch" VB, and i would be pretty upset at jaben and hippo because
89.90$ is the most money i've ever put on iems so far, and none i've had before, even though much cheaper, have displayed such a glaring fault (even the horrible bloated muddy bass of the cx300 can have appeal for undemanding bassheads, while high sibilance have no fans i've ever heard of).

or

2-People just have (very) different sensitivity to sibilance.
I already noticed i was often complaining about sibilant vocals on badly encoded mp3s while some of my friends (those who dont care much about sound) didnt seem to even hear it. But here it is not an encoding issue, and it would seem like if among "audiophiles" sound signature preference is a matter of taste, the clear, obvious difference between very sibilant and non-sibilant vocals should be something quite objective and non-dependant on the listener, right? But what if this wasnt the case? I'm pretty sure clieos and dfkt have an audition that is at least as good as mine (i am a total noob and far from an audiophile). Would this mean that the human ear's (or brain) perception of sibilance is something that is just a normal variable among individuals?

This would imply that one cannot consider someone else's appreciation of the sibilance displayed by a pair of iems as an objective statement, and should make sure he shares the same kind of sensitivity to it before...

This is a lot of quite badly written rambling, but i would love to hear what the more knowledgeable members of head-fi have to say about this.

Thanks again to all of you, i hope i will get some feedback

EDIT: good lord, didnt realize i wrote that much, this wall of text is definitely not going to attract many people to this thread!!

 

[ClieOS]

I think I posted on my review that I detect sibilance on brighter music and on louder volume. Since I usually listen to my music in low volume, sibilance is not a problem for me most of the time. Also, we all use different source, so that might have an effect on how much sibilance each of us detect.

Anyway, here is the picture of the foam found in all Head-Direct / HifiMan's IEM (it is RE1 in picture). You might want to find something like it. You don't want anything too dense or it will absorb too much sound wave.

 

[daouda]

Thanks for the reply clieos. I remembered you were one that reported sibilance on those phones, but not to the level of annoyance and only on higher volume and brighter music. The thing is that for me (and i think some others) sibilance is always VERY present on the VBs (way above average) and distracting, even at lower volume on darker music. And some other VB owners (some of whom are allegedly 'sibilansophobic') have reported close to NONE sibilance at all, at least below average when compared to other phones.

This is why i would like to figure this out : is it possible that i got a bad batch of Hippo VBs or is sibilance simply a much more subjective issue than i thought it was?
My sources are v2 Fuze and sony s639f (unamped), and sometimes the ungodly horrible soundcard integrated in my VAIO laptop.

And thank you very much for the picture, your input is always much appreciated. Im gonna try to get something like that, but i doubt i will find that same thing (how soft is this?).
Now if someone like brendon that actually did the foam mod to the hippo VBs could tell me more about it, that would be really great

 

[Moomins]

An old thread - but it was really interesting to read about your experiences with these iem's Daouda. I just recently bought a Cowon S9 so I was looking for a half decent pair of earphones to enjoy it with, previously I had just some 20 pound pair of Sony's that did the job I thought but always wanted something a little better. I saw some rave reviews for these and looking back, it was stupid as there were plenty of others in that price range too - for me the money is a fair bit as I'm not really an enthusiast, I just like music.

They came on Friday and I have to say - they hurt my ears, the sound really bothers me. I'm no expert but I can still tell when something sounds.. well.. bad. This Sibilance is something I can really hear whenever its a lighter song or with a lot of drums or with singing etc etc - I've been trying to run them in over the weekend, hoping for a miracle as other than that.. it looks like I would be stuffed. I'm really disappointed to be honest - I was expecting something a little bit special but just feel cheated. I was really hoping they would be better than the bass heavy cheap phones I had already, which wouldn't be hard but they aren't, they are unpleasant - at least the pair I own.

Just I wanted to add this post to this as I found it via google search - as a warning for any other users who are looking for there first pair of half decent IEM's - in my opinion, keep looking.

 

[B[van]]

Anything But iPod - MP3 Player Reviews & News

the VBs are flagged as an editors choice. hmmm

 

[Moomins]

Yeah that's the main review that I judged it off - he mentions a bit of sibilance but mine.. well is more than a bit. Was thinking of emailing to the company and asking them about it but I've no idea of there customer service.

 

[dfrost]

I also received my Hippo VBs on Friday (Feb. 12).

I am thoroughly enjoying them, sampling periodically for an hour or two periodically as they burn in (with music, not pink noise).

My only comparison IEM are NuForce NE-7Ms with which I am also thrilled, particularly with Comply T400 tips reversed to 'unveil' mids and treble. I bought the VBs as IEMs with a similar signature that could be more easily inserted and wouldn't require frequent (and expensive) tip replacement.

My VBs meet those goals and and I am completely satisfied with them (although I occasionally miss the Pause button on the NE-7M cord). Their clarity, audio balance and extension, sound stage and comfort have all been outstanding.

Right out of the box (with supplied silicone tips), the VBs were as good as the thoroughly burned-in NE-7Ms, although the bass could be prominent on some tracks. After 40-50 hours, they sound fantastic with all but a very few tracks. The only place I've noticed the "harsh treble" frequently mentioned in VB reviews has been on a few piano-heavy pieces, but I haven't yet done an A-B comparison with those tracks between my two IEMs.

I'm now using Shure E-2C silicone tips on the VBs, mostly because they're more secure on the nozzles and in my ears than the Hippo-supplied tips. I didn't like the Shure tips on the NE-7Ms compared to T400s, but they're excellent on the VBs.

Qualifier: My ears, like the rest of me, are considerably older than most of you head-fi-ers, and they were never 'golden' when I was young, either. So I'm probably much less sensitive to sibilance than most of you.

My stronger music preferences (what I listen to the most) are: classic rock (Led Zeppelin and later Robert Plant, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Queen), Mark Knopfler (What genre would that be?), ‘moderate’ country (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lyle Lovett, Alison Krauss), and female vocalists (k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, Sarah McLachlan, Brandi Carlile, KT Tunstall). Sources are a Blackberry Curve and iPod 120Gb Classic, no EQ applied.

 

[daouda]

Whoa... this REALLY is an old thread that i made before i had enough burn-in on the VB... I have to say (like my more recent posts in other VB threads implyed) that my opinion of them has VASTLY changed since, partly thanks to the foam mod, but mainly by "burning them in", whatever this may mean...
The harshness has been very significantly and noticeably reduced (even without foam) and they no longer hurt my ears anymore, at least without extended listening sessions. The sibilance has also been vastly tamed along with it. They still slightly exacerbate any vocal sibilance already present in the recordings compared to some other phones (which can be pretty annoying), but dont present any of it on other better masterized tracks free of vocal sibilance. So i guess you can now count me in as a burn-in beleiver. Let me stress again that they sound MUCH smoother across all the sonic range now for me, just as many others have experienced. I was thinking about selling them but i love them so much with some (quite a lot) of my music that i will have to wait until i receive my panasonics HJE900 and FA Eterna before deciding if i will sell them or not.
So my advice would be, keep them, give them a chance, but if you listen to a lot of heavily vocal music, they shouldnt be your only phones for sure but shouldnt be thrown in the trash anyway, they really are really excellent with some recordings.

 

[brendon]

Hi, sorry I did not see your thread earlier. But if you don't mind me asking, what is your age ? I believe age has a lot to do with hearing sibilance. I find it odd to believe that few people hear lots of sibilance and few people hear NO sibilance from the Hippo VB.

I still face some sibilance but nothing like earlier when my face would be mostly contorted in agony on listening to the VBs with most songs. (without foam mod)

However unlike ClieOS, I raise the volume a bit higher than normal so sibilance is much more noticeable. I tried listening to music at much lower volumes and the sibilance issue was practically non - existent.

I will give these earphones to my dad and check if he faces any sibilance to check my age theory.

If that fails then all the other plausible explanation would be that the Hippo VB batches have really varying quantity.

 

[dfrost]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendon /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi, sorry I did not see your thread earlier. But if you don't mind me asking, what is your age ? I believe age has a lot to do with hearing sibilance.(

I have six decades of worldly experience, young man!

 

[daouda]

Hey Brendon, I'm 31.... I also thought about the age factor concerning treble harshness/sibilance sensitivity, keep doing your little research, could be interesting

 

[swanlee]

At first mine were a little sibilant and harsh but after 100HRS of burn in with actual music and mid level volumes they just sound so much warmer and not harsh in the least. I basically hit shuffle before I went to bed pointed the opening at each other and let them play at mid level volumes till the morning. Each night i did this I noticed less and less harshness until now they sound great.

I'm 36 so that may be part of it as my hearing only goes up to about 16Khz because of normal age related high freq hearing loss. That is the only thing I can think of that would explain why some people can't stand the harshness while some are fine with them after burn in.

even though it did not bother me to much at first out of the box the VB's were fairly harsh and sibilant with certain vocals but now that is all gone with no need for me to do any type of foam mod.

 

[daouda]

The problem is that with people like me and Moomins (prolly also Brendon), that find VB's EXTREMELY and unbearably harsh and sibilant out of the box, 100 hours of burn in (i did that, with pink noise and music) will not be enough to make them likeable, so the foam mod will greatly help until the phones get burned in "naturally" listening to music.

 

[brendon]

Hmm, did not get a chance to show them to my dad yet (who also has 6 decades of experience like dfrost !) but Swanlee made an interesting observation. His hearing goes up to about 16 khz. Mine goes up to about 19 khz or so. So perhaps that also has a bearing on ones sensitivity to sibilance.

@daouda - Could you do me a favour ? Could you download these test tones and see how much your hearing goes till ?

High Frequency Response and Hearing Test

There is another thread here - http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f103/v...ne-3-a-398089/ where some people heard sibilance and many others did not ! So we are not alone.

 

[esanthosh]

Well Brendon! Do not know if this is completely relevant.

I do not have Hippo VB, only Hippo Epic-Sparkle. Going by your reviews, I'd assume harsh trebles and sibilance would be similar to VB.

I've never exclusively burned in any IEM or headphone so far. I just normally listen and let them "evolve". This one's not bought by me, rather came as a "gift" along with the Alessandro MS1i I got from Jaben.

Around the age as Swanlee (35) and having the same High frequency hearing loss (16 Khz), I do not hear "slight" harshness, rather "take them out of the ear NOW" harshness. I decided not to put those things in my ear until a 100 hours of burn-in are completed (Now nearly 25 hours) with a check every 20 hours or so.

Age? High frequency response? Just sensitivity?